PlayStation 4: Sony’s chance to redeem itself

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Sony aims to not make the same mistakes twice when it comes to the PlayStation. While we’ve been hearing that the Japanese electronics maker would be sticking with the PlayStation 3 for the foreseeable future with no plans for a new console, that is apparently no longer the case.

Gaming news site VG24/7 reports that sources say Sony is determined to get the PlayStation 4, codenamed “Orbis,” out before the launch of Microsoft’s next console, referred to as the Xbox 720. Rumors have suggested a late 2013 release for the 720, and Sony wants the PS4 out first.

Sony’s hard lessons with the PS3

Do you blame them? The PS3 launch was a mess. While Sony came hot of out the gate at E3 2005 with a console that captivated everyone with its power and gameplay, those were the good ‘ol days. A holiday season launch that year was not to be, and repeated delays pushed the launch back to November 2006.

This gave Microsoft a year head start. Frustrated game developers turned to Microsoft and Nintendo as a result of Sony’s mistakes, and PlayStation exclusives like Final Fantasy were offered on rival consoles. Worse yet, Sony (and Microsoft for that matter) probably never factored in the surprising success of the Wii.

It was a perfect storm that nearly washed the PS3 away.

All these factors permanently damaged the sales potential of the PS3, something that has taken a half decade to recover from. While sales of the console now are nearly equal to the Xbox, it is still in third place. This is a far cry from the past where the PlayStation 2 crushed the competition, and had no trouble in attracting exclusive rights to the hottest game titles and franchises.

PlayStation Orbis: Sony’s mea culpa?

Sony needs a home run with the PlayStation 4. From what’s being rumored, it appears the company is fully aware of this fact. The device is said to move to the x86 platform, and will support games at a resolution of 4096×2160. This means the PS4 has the capability to do 3D games at 1080p, an improvement over the 720p supported by the PS3. The processor would jump from eight to 24 cores, so there’s a heck of a lot of power inside this thing.

With gamers demanding more realistic games, it’s only a natural progression for Sony and other manufacturers to pack more power into its consoles. Whether game developers will have the capability to take advantage of it right away is another story; many game developers still aren’t using the current console to its maximum potential.

One thing that may disappoint gamers is Sony’s apparent decision to take an aggressive stance against used games, akin to what Microsoft is expected to do in the next Xbox. Discs would be locked to the console once they are played. This will kill the massive used game business that GameStop and other retailers have built over the years, but on the other hand it puts more profits in the pockets of the developers.

Add all of this together, along with a maturing online gaming system (hopefully unhacked) in the PlayStation Network, and the PS4 could be exactly what the doctor ordered for Sony’s video game business. Whether it will be able to compete with Microsoft’s Windows 8/Windows Phone 8/Xbox 720 trifecta, though — all of which are rumored to have extensive cross-platform compatibility — remains to be seen.

Tagged In

I don’t really care whether or not the ps4 and xbox 720 are any good. I loved the old consoles, but am thinking of boycotting this round altogether. The reason being that i think its disgusting that they can lock a game to a console. I used to trade in my old master system and atari 2600 games, mega drive, ps1, ps2, xbox etc, i’ve done it for years. Once i’ve finished playing a game it usually becomes a paperweight.

I don’t know if this will put more money in anybody’s pocket. Some people trade in a few games just so they can afford the latest titles. Instead of paying £50, they pay £25 and give in a couple of used games. If they stop second hand game trading, then they may lose out on a few sales too.

Anyhow, the state of gaming these days depresses me. I hate over zealous copy protection, i hate having to pay £10 for a map pack every few weeks, just so that i can continue playing the same game as my friends, and now they’re stopping us from selling something we’ve paid for!?

And let us not forget what a dodgy company Sony is these days – they sold ps3’s with the capability to run linux, then just decided to take it away from all the customers who had already bought a ps3! I call that theft.

Sony, Microsoft, go $%^& yourselves. I make this simple promise – if you take away our right to sell something we’ve paid for, then i won’t pay for any more games. I shall buy a modchip and just torrent anything i like. And i’ll buy a second hand console too, then you get no money. That’ll teach you for being greedy.

Anonymous

I’m with you on that. They are doing the same shit to us PC gamers.

Jonathan Bell

Sheesh! I totally agree!
I’m going to be so ticked off if they EVER even THINK of doing that with ANY PC games!

Anonymous

Doesn’t Steam do that already? If you download it from Steam, you can’t sell it afterwards can you? I don’t use Steam for that very reason.

Scott Yates

A big difference is with steam though is that game is always yours to be downloaded and redownloaded. A far cry from a disk. I don’t mind not being able to trade my game back steam affords me is the fact once you buy it you never have to worry about it being lost, stolen ( albeit a different story if your account is hacked) damaged. None of that is reguarded in this pathetic attempt to put more money in publishers ( I doubt this will result in developers of games seeing any more money)

Anonymous

Doesn’t Steam do that already? If you download it from Steam, you can’t sell it afterwards can you? I don’t use Steam for that very reason.

Jonathan Bell

Sheesh! I totally agree!
I’m going to be so ticked off if they EVER even THINK of doing that with ANY PC games!

Jason

Are console gamers still buying their games on physical disks? I’m a PC gamer, and it’s been about four years since I last purchased a boxed game. I buy all of my games through digital distribution.

When the next generation of consoles comes out, I will consider them. But if they don’t have a good digital distribution system, then I’m not interested.

Joseph Blasi

I don’t you or more likely YOUR ISP will like people downloading Blu-ray sized games and the system will need a big HDD to fit a few 30GB sized games.

Jason

Well I downloaded RAGE, and the download was over 20GB. No big deal. It’s not like I’m buying games every day. I would hope that the new consoles have at least a terabyte drive, but they could get by with less.

Anonymous

Are you really that out of touch that you didn’t know consoles take discs?

Jason

No – I didn’t ask whether the current generation of consoles could take discs. I was just curious about how commonly people were using them. I am out of touch about what’s being offered on the consoles’ online stores. I assume it’s mostly just small indie-type games.

Anonymous

They sell loads of games in the online store, problem is having a big enough hdd to fit them all on. Shouldn’t really be a problem nowadays, but the console hdd’s are small and overpriced.

The other thing i don’t like is that the games available in the online stores always seem to be full price, whereas you can often pick up a bargain at a game store. If anything, online stores should be a bit cheaper, as there’s no manufacturing and distribution costs.

And of course, you can’t sell your game once you’ve completed it. So you’ll end up with a load of old games that you don’t play anymore just sat around on your hard drive.

Jason

Well on Steam, games are generally full price when they are first released, but the prices eventually come down. And Steam often has sales where you can get big discounts on different games.

And you don’t have to keep the game on your hard drive when you are finished with it. You could delete it, and it you ever want to play it again, just download it from Steam again for free.

Jason

Well on Steam, games are generally full price when they are first released, but the prices eventually come down. And Steam often has sales where you can get big discounts on different games.

And you don’t have to keep the game on your hard drive when you are finished with it. You could delete it, and it you ever want to play it again, just download it from Steam again for free.

Anonymous

Ok, so what if you buy a game, play it for a week and complete it? Then you just delete it and that’s that. Lets take Mass Effect as an example, its the sort of game that you play through for the story, but once completed there’s little replay value. Its a top title, so probably about £40 to £50 to buy. Are you happy with paying that, and then having no value once you’ve finished it.

What i usually do with games like that, is play them, complete them, then trade them in and get a decent amount back.

Don’t get me wrong, i like the idea of digital downloads. I just don’t like the money grabbing reasons the companies do it for. Its not to benefit us, thats for sure.

Jason

I do pay about $50 for a game, play it, finish it, and that’s that. Sometimes I will keep playing a game after I finish it, but I don’t consider “replay value” to be a definitive indicator of whether or not a game is good. If a developer makes a great game, I believe they should be rewarded for it so they will continue making great games. Game development is not cheap. If I buy a game and then trade it in, it could be traded through ten people and the developer earns no more than the initial sale. But with digital distribution, if I didn’t want to pay the full $50, I could wait for the price to come down, and the developer still earns money from my purchase.

Anonymous

Remember the rental market is pretty big too, some single player games like Mass Effect will be rented out thousands of times. So the developers always get paid.

If you’re happy with things, fair enough. I don’t agree, but that’s life. As a consumer i like choice. I don’t like clutter, and i love value for money. So trading in a couple of old titles i never use and getting a chunk of money off the latest titles appeals to me.

I’ll point out that i’d happily pay more for certain titles. I’m a big Halo, COD, Gears of War and Battlefield fan. I usually get these titles the day they come out, and have had literally thousands of hours of gameplay from these games. Great value for money, and they keep making them so they must be doing ok.

With Halo, when the DLC came out, you could either buy it now, or if you waited a few months they’d put it to free. That way, everyone was eventually playing the same maps. What a great idea. But with COD, you don’t ever get the maps for free, and as such, you end up having to buy them just so that you can play the same maps with your friends. To me, that’s just annoying. I’m not stingy with money, i just don’t like being ripped off or forced into spending on something, and i don’t like big greedy companies.

I have been very disappointed with other titles that i’ve bought in the past. Assassins Creed comes to mind – i don’t know if you’ve played it, but i wasn’t impressed with it. Press A to jump on the roof, press A to run across the roof, press A to go into a crowd, press A etc, it bored me to tears. I traded it in the same week and got a decent amount back. If i’d bought it from Steam, i’d be stuck with it. I suppose i could have tried the demo, but i was sold by the trailer and reviews.

Also, i’m not saying that replay value is all there is to a game. I played L.A Noire and loved the story, good game imo. 99% useless once completed. I also enjoyed Rage, but you can finish it in a week. That’s a 20gb download as you pointed out, on my connection that would take hours. In the UK, the average ADSL connection isn’t that great, we’re lagging behind the world there. To put it bluntly, there is no way i would want to download a game the size of Rage. I use my internet constantly, and would have to suffer slow speeds while its downloading, this is also annoying.

Just out of interest, do you live on your own, or with a family? Not being nosey, just wondered if you have to share your connection with anyone. I imagine in a family home, someone downloading 20gb files would be impractical at times.

Anyhow, i’ve nothing against digital distribution, i think its a good thing. I have everything against being forced to use digital distribution. I don’t like my choices being taken away, that’s really all i’m getting at. I’ve been gaming since the 80’s and love it, but some things seem to be changing for the worse. I’d like to see more of a happy medium, where people like you can have digital distribution, and people like me can buy the game from a shop and trade it in when finished.

Jason

Well I’m not arguing for the elimination of games on physical disks (though I wouldn’t be bothered by it). I’m just arguing for the availability of all games through digital distribution.

For your curiosity about my Internet connection, I have a 12 megabit cable modem connection that’s shared between several computers. You could have one download going or a few downloads going, and it doesn’t make a very noticeable impact on the browsing ability of other computers. You can even still stream video (though HD video might not work very well). But a torrent download can cause noticeable slowness, especially if you don’t cap its upload speed. When I downloaded RAGE through Steam, I did it in several hours one evening and it didn’t cause any issues. But I suppose that for people who want to keep their Internet connection at its best performance, a handy feature for consoles would be the ability to queue downloads to take place overnight.

And I must say something about your mention of Assassin’s Creed. I bought the original game back when it was released on Steam, and I also thought the gameplay was boring and repetitive. So when Assassin’s Creed II was released, I wasn’t interested. A year later (around the time Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was released), I decided to finally try Assassin’s Creed II since I could get it at a good discount on Steam. I played through Assassin’s Creed II, then immediately purchased Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and played through it also. I’ve been gaming since the days of the NES, and the playthrough of those two games was one of my favorite experiences in all of gaming. They hugely improved the gameplay, and the story was just incredible. I think Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was the pinnacle of the series, but I would strongly recommend playing Assassin’s Creed II first. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations was a great game as well, though not quite as much as Brotherhood.

Anonymous

I’d like to point out that you, in addition to many of the tech writers don’t realize that one third of americans don’t even have the option of getting broadband.

And then you have to consider that only 25% of the american population actually has regular access to broadband at home. (IE, the broadband is both available and purchased by someone in the household)

Although I fault tech writers on this myopic view more.

Just because someone lives in a rural area doesn’t mean they don’t like tech or video games.

On top of that, many people with “broadband” DSL or comcast have connections that are too inconsistent, too slow, or have data caps too low to realistically download their games.

Why would someone buy a digital game, whe he could get it boxed? I still like the idea of having my games on disc, and not registered with any distribution system, even on the PC. People that rely on digital game services are just idiots.

Sad to see that Sony is making the same mistake it made last time which is no carry over games. When this happened fromPS2 to PS3 that is what hurt sales the most people had lots of gmaes on their PS2 and could not play them on the PS3 so why replace the item if it stills works. I feel the same thing will happen again with this release, Sony has 2 options super cheap price for new console or allow another 5 years for people to need to replace their PS3. Dont get me wrong hard gamers like me will just go out and buy because we want and can but people on a budget or hoping mum and dad will get them one for Xmas will be the ones making the change over very slowly.

Anonymous

They did have a backwards compatible PS3. I bought one when they came out, but I believe that Sony quit manufacturing them pretty quick. They took the Linux capability from my console, but the ability to play ps2 titles is still there.

I bought my PS3 because I was TIRED of playing my PS2. To this day, I can’t think of many games that I’d still like to have my PS2 or PS1 around to play, but the ones that I would are available already for download (ff7 and final fantasy tactics for instance) or have been re-released (the first 2 god of war games, shadow of the colossus). For other games that I loved to kill time on (Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series for example), the modern-day equivalents are better by leaps and bounds.

Anonymous

SMH. 24 cores, and not the same mistake again? Game’s still don’t use dual or quad properly (more quad) and still aren’t using current consoles? Come on, current consoles had some potention in 2007 NOW? Not so much… Go compare bf3 pc vs 360 if u think otherwise Come on ed…

Anonymous

That’s another thing – how are these game developers going to keep up with the constant advancements in technology without either hiring more staff (which seems highly unlikely in today’s economy) or invest in newer development equipment that speeds up the game making process (which of course has a learning curve to it).

Zina Bat

The Wii proved that the gaming industry is not as reliant on power as previously thought. It has graphics that were barely an improvement over the gamecube but was more successful -by far- than either sony or microsoft. Despite nintendo’s money-grabbing, the Wii was also the most reasonably priced. I eventually bought an xbox and am unimpressed. Shooters suck on a console and I don’t know why there are so damn many ported to them.

I won’t be buying either console as I know they’ll be expensive as hell and not worth the money. Oh, not to mention that they make you pay for a network subscription which is -retarded-.

Anonymous

The PlayStation 4 rumors great and all, but i disagree with locking games to the system. This would affect Gamestop and other use retailers (like the article pointed out), but also makes a customer think twice when buying a game. For example I saw a game in bestbuy which i play in demo, so I bought when I carried it home and was playing for one whole day I realize that the game was bad, not good enough to spend $70 on, so when back to bestbuy to get it replace. If that scenario was to happen with a locked console I would be stuck with a crappy game. And another reason is new games are expensive $60-$70 a disc; I rather buy it used than buy it new. And besides some game developers like EA does the next best thing, which is they lock certain aspects of the game until a code is purchase which i personally don’t have any problem with it. I think game developers should make their disc more secure not the consoles so people cannot copy their discs.

Christopher Walser

I would argue any increased profits from locking games to consoles will be marginal at best….reason being, ALL games will be scrutinized heavily if lacking in the replayability department. Take Star wars Unleashed 2, it was a great game but beatable in 1 or 2 days (tops)…the only reason i even bothered playing this game was because i was able to rent it online. It wasn’t because of the used/rental game market that i bypassed purchasing this game, it was because the devs failed to create a game worth the hefty price tag….i have no problem buying games like skyrim, call of duty (online play), forza, ect., but a developer has to earn my money if they want me to drop $60 on a game every time. Also not to be forgotten is the lost revenue from downloadable content….this has to be easily one of the most profitable areas of the current gaming era as devs are charging 20%+ for “extra” content that takes a fraction of the time to create in comparison to the game itself. Take away the used game market and you will instantly lose all of the sales from consumers who might not be able to afford a $60 game, but don’t mind spending $10-$20 for a new map pack or other useless upgrade to extend the replayability of their game for months on end

Anonymous

Damn, i forgot about that – its going to kill off rentals too! This sucks, i too like to rent games sometimes. Some games i buy straight away as i’ll play them online. Others i rent just to play for a week and finish them.

I don’t see why they’d lose money for dlc tho, there will probably still be tons of dlc. Not that i’m a fan of that either.

Anonymous

Damn, i forgot about that – its going to kill off rentals too! This sucks, i too like to rent games sometimes. Some games i buy straight away as i’ll play them online. Others i rent just to play for a week and finish them.

I don’t see why they’d lose money for dlc tho, there will probably still be tons of dlc. Not that i’m a fan of that either.

Anonymous

Damn, i forgot about that – its going to kill off rentals too! This sucks, i too like to rent games sometimes. Some games i buy straight away as i’ll play them online. Others i rent just to play for a week and finish them.

I don’t see why they’d lose money for dlc tho, there will probably still be tons of dlc. Not that i’m a fan of that either.

Christopher Walser

The reason i state there could be lost revenue from downloadable content is simply because i know i myself have purchased map packs and other various downloads for games i’ve either borrowed or rented….i would have never purchased those same games because either they simply didn’t warrant the standard $60 price tag or because they didn’t initially appeal to me until after taking a flyer and trying them out (via rentals).

Anthony Moulen

What I think is missing is the fact that no only would it affect Gamestop it could affect you. I own two playstations, one in our main family room and one in our basement. It was cheaper in some ways to buy two playstations than to buy bluray players and have to move the game console around. I would be trapped to playing games on one console under this mode, I couldn’t go down to the basement and play a game for a while and move up to the family room to play it some more. If they do this, I will stick to Nintendo and leave Sony and Microsoft to suffer their losses for forgetting their customers.

ALso what happens if my PS4 blows up due to a lightning strike (or a bad power supply) and I have to replace the device, how do I move my purchased titles, I certainly am not going to purchase them again because Sony wants more money. I would have to wonder if this type of lock down is even legal, I would question if it would meet the UK consumer protection laws that I have heard of, and I would hope that we could convince our representative to file laws protecting consumers in the US.

Anonymous

I’m thinking the same thing. If they pull this crap then they need smacked with a big fat lawsuit.

Anonymous

As much as I love playing video games and playing with new toys the video gaming industry during this generation has pissed me off.

I had a PlayStation 3 that provided all the video gaming goodness that I could possibly need, it was also an investment that suited me economically… until it broke down that is.

Everybody knows the economy isn’t all that great right now but yet these console making companies are planning on releasing these even newer consoles in just a couple of years from now. I (frankly) do not have the money to keep replacing consoles (that were either poorly built or programmed to brick) let alone purchase an entirely new generation of console every couple of years (technology is getting better and better and these release cycles are only going to get shorter and shorter in the long run).

Therefore, I couldn’t really give a damn about the next next generation of consoles there are far more pressing things to worry about such as where the hell our economy is going.

Anonymous

I agree. I still have a working master system kicking round in the attic, my friend has a working ps1, my bro has a snes and nintendo 64, all working perfectly decades after we bought them!

My first 360, RROD. My second 360, RROD. Microsoft didn’t want to know as it was out of warranty. My bros ps3, YLOD. He bought the new one, and it hasn’t broke yet. But that’s still a few hundred £’s wasted this generation on broken consoles.

I think the problem with this generation is that they crammed too much power in and just let the cooling system try to ‘sort it all out”. Either way, its unacceptable.

Robert Foy

Hi there, this is me typing from a PC that has 10x the power of the crappy consoles (aka current consoles with 2005 tech compared to PC cpu/videocard from 2011). I will stick with my superior game system that can have 3 monitors at 3600*1200 res with DX11 graphics maxed out and keyboard and mouse and ability to play every game there is and the next 2 years without performance issues AND still be able to watch movies, use the net, use software, write things, store things, fap to things, non-proprietary, multitasking, etc etc, and it will STILL be better than the next crop of consoles. Everyone’s going to be spending $400-500 on a console, when you can be smart and get a i5 2500 CPU and a DX11 videocard, at the time of this writing, for the same price, and that’s including a new motherboard/ram. Sorry, you are on a computer looking at this, ergo you can upgrade that POS to something that can play modern games. You don’t need to spend $500 on a videocard and $500 on a CPU, you can get the above that I listed for the same price of one of the new consoles and I bet you a million dollars that the new consoles won’t have as much horsepower as the i5/i7 and a mid level DX11 card. Watch.

Oh, and don’t get your hopes up, the console makers are going to get rid of used game sales as well because they will most likely be either download-only games or have to input one-time CD keys that makes it impossible to sell them used after use.

Welcome to what PC gamers have been going through since the beginning.

Anonymous

I’m a PC gamer and I enjoy tweaking my system and the superior graphics just like you. Hell I have a 1,000 watt PS and two SLI video cards though they’re older GTX275 overclocked to hell. And an overclocked Q9550 processor. I will probably upgrade when Haswell processor comes out. I always make sure I get my moneys worth out of my stuff. But your argument that PC gaming is cheaper is completely untrue. There may be scenarios where it can be cheaper but for a proper gaming system it does cost more. Like a decent video card and the ability to overclock requires a better power supply, and overclocking requires a better motherboard and memory . Although price wise it’s better than it used to be, like you don’t have to upgrade nearly as often. I always buy the most expensive video card I can afford. Then I run it a couple of years and then buy a second one at a discounted price. I have enough graphics and processing power to run new games, but the only problem with my graphics cards is they don’t have DX11. Of course DX10 on my old system still looks better than a current gen console. I don’t really like console gaming and a decent gaming PC looks way better. But It is still amazing how good the graphics are considering the crap hardware that these consoles have in them. When the new ones come out we will be seeing some much better PC games because they won’t have to cripple them for today’s consoles.

Doc Chronic

There’s SO many things wrong with this concept of locking games to consoles. I am only willing to pay $60 for a game since I know that I can either A: Trade/loan it to a friend who wants to play it & vice versa so that I can play his old games for free. or B: Sell them to a place like GameStop, GameFly, EBGames etc for about $20, 1/3rd of what I paid. They think that this will make more $$$ for developers but in reality it will simply make people less inclined to invest in their new console/games, thus less $$$ in dev’s pockets. Not to mention that fit will completely kill of about 5 different industries, I will but DLC for games that I get from GameFly that I really like (as long as it’s reasonable) & that is money that the developer would NEVER get if I couldn’t play the game for a monthly fee. DLC is almost STRAIGHT profit since most of it is original code from the game that was removed from the release version so that they can sell it to you later. If you buy those kind of “add-ons” then about 75-85% of that is going right into $ony’s & the dev’s pockets. $ony needs to stop this piracy whining and get back into making GOOD products & developers need to stop being lazy and make some games worth buying… THAT will make them more $$$ in the long run…

Anonymous

Yes! To everything you said. That really pissed me off when I read that about them locking the game to the console. I’m a PC gamer myself, I hope they don’t figure out a way to screw us too. I can’t wait for the new consoles so we don’t have to keep playing games that were ported from hardware that’s so ancient. It’s dumbing down the PC games. The consoles are where the money is, so the best games get developed for them first. I would still hate to see the console guy’s getting screwed over by these big company’s.

Anonymous

If Sony and MS try to pull this, we may be looking at a second crash. If they were smart, they’d go digital (with appropriate measures for the non-broadband having folks) and cut prices to $20. I’ve bought a lot of digital distro games and don’t really mind that I can’t resell them, since they weren’t that expensive in the first place.

Of course, in such a scheme, I’d like to see day 1 downloadable versions of the whole ps3 library for back compatibility, with the option to trade in my discs for them, but Sony has sucked so hard at that with the PSP, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Anonymous

Also, if Nintendo was smart, they would pointedly *not* put in these measures, and undercut the top price of games by $10. It would be their ticket back to being synonymous with gaming.

I personally find it incredibly unlikely that they will lock games to consoles, there was a great article on http://sonyps4.com that explained all of the reasons this was just a crazy rumor. It would be a horrible thing for Sony to do and certainly they would lose business.

Anonymous

I am still waiting for them to fix the PS3, PS4 will never happen until they fix PS3, so its a big who cares!

That would mean, that if my PlayStation dies, and I buy a new one, my games won’t work anymore. These idiotes are never going to learn their lessons. Boycot is the only possible answer.

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